Thoughts on the Imus Kerfuffle
TV and radio personality Don Imus was fired from both jobs this week for the only offense deemed objectionable enough to warrant termination for today's power players in the media, entertainment and politics. He made a politically incorrect comment with ambiguously racial overtones. I'm not here to defend Imus' dumb comments, but the amount of headlines the story stole this week is extraordinarily disproportionate to its relevance. Imus certainly owed an apology to the young women he so callously smeared and stereotyped on national airwaves.....and he gave it. He gave it multiple times, in fact. But that's not good enough anymore for any comment even loosely connected to race.
In general, I've thought that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have gotten a bad rap for their alleged race-baiting, but their conduct in the Imus affair has been appalling. Far more egregious comments are made, if not necessarily directly race-related, on a regular basis on talk radio and cable news by both left-leaning and right-leaning voices. GOP Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has a point when he says that if Imus has to go, so should Rosie O'Donnell and Bill Maher. I've heard both make incredibly personal and insulting remarks directed towards individuals, even within the context of race or ethnicity. Even Jay Leno sprinkles his monologues with good-natured ribbing of ethnic stereotypes.
And what about comment made just this week by Fox News commentator Dick Morris and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay that were at least as racially insensitive as what Imus said last week. Morris, when referencing a poll that showed that 26% of American voters are "scared" of Hillary Clinton, said that "Here we have a black man running for President that Americans are not afraid of....but they are afraid of Hillary." DeLay suggested that the indictments he faced for corruption charges are the same sort of thing as when Hitler killed six million Jews during the Holocaust. Now, where were the headlines for these outrageous comments last week? Why are Dick Morris and Tom DeLay not just as worthy of incessant public condemnation by those who piled on Imus?
Perhaps it's easy to say this as a white male, but I fear the creeping loss of freedoms in this country far more than I fear quasi-racist remarks by a second-rate broadcaster who most people hadn't even heard of seven days ago. Whether its the theft of speech freedoms by political correctness puritans or the theft of property rights by anti-smoking radicals, things are going very badly for those who value freedom over manufactured "nice behavior" in this country.
In general, I've thought that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have gotten a bad rap for their alleged race-baiting, but their conduct in the Imus affair has been appalling. Far more egregious comments are made, if not necessarily directly race-related, on a regular basis on talk radio and cable news by both left-leaning and right-leaning voices. GOP Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has a point when he says that if Imus has to go, so should Rosie O'Donnell and Bill Maher. I've heard both make incredibly personal and insulting remarks directed towards individuals, even within the context of race or ethnicity. Even Jay Leno sprinkles his monologues with good-natured ribbing of ethnic stereotypes.
And what about comment made just this week by Fox News commentator Dick Morris and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay that were at least as racially insensitive as what Imus said last week. Morris, when referencing a poll that showed that 26% of American voters are "scared" of Hillary Clinton, said that "Here we have a black man running for President that Americans are not afraid of....but they are afraid of Hillary." DeLay suggested that the indictments he faced for corruption charges are the same sort of thing as when Hitler killed six million Jews during the Holocaust. Now, where were the headlines for these outrageous comments last week? Why are Dick Morris and Tom DeLay not just as worthy of incessant public condemnation by those who piled on Imus?
Perhaps it's easy to say this as a white male, but I fear the creeping loss of freedoms in this country far more than I fear quasi-racist remarks by a second-rate broadcaster who most people hadn't even heard of seven days ago. Whether its the theft of speech freedoms by political correctness puritans or the theft of property rights by anti-smoking radicals, things are going very badly for those who value freedom over manufactured "nice behavior" in this country.
posted by Mark at 4:38 PM
1 Comments:
Even I, as a woman, am sick of "political correctness". We need to move on!
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